Thread: Dialectical Materialism

I was thinking about this the other day while taking a walk in my near by woods.

For those of you who don't know what this is, here's some info.

"Philosophical materialism is the outlook which explains that there is only one material world. There is no Heaven or Hell. The universe, which has always existed and is not the creation of any supernatural being, is in the process of constant flux. Human beings are a part of nature, and evolved from lower forms of life, whose origins sprung from a lifeless planet some 3.6 billion or so years ago. With the evolution of life, at a certain stage, came the development of animals with a nervous system, and eventually human beings with a large brain. With humans emerged human thought and consciousness. The human brain alone is capable of producing general ideas, i.e., thinking. Therefore matter, which existed eternally, existed and still exists independently of the mind and human beings. Things existed long before any awareness of them arose or could have arisen on the part of living organisms.

For materialists there is no consciousness apart from the living brain, which is part of a material body. A mind without a body is an absurdity. Matter is not a product of mind, but mind itself is the highest product of matter. Ideas are simply a reflection of the independent material world that surrounds us. Things reflected in a mirror do not depend on this reflection for their existence. "All ideas are taken from experience, are reflections - true or distorted - of reality," states Engels. Or to use the words of Marx, "Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life."

--By Rob Sewell


This is more or less my philosophy but I'd like to believe in a mind without a body. Which would give birth to hope of an after life of some kind. When I look around myself, I notice that I'm surrounded with life and death. Life seems to short, there must still be something else to this.

agree? disagree?

Wow, that concept's quite a mouthfull. I would have to agree with you about believing in a mind without a body. I believe there is an afterlife of some kind. Life is too short. This is why I believe we continue to exist in some form after death, I find it extremely hard to fathom the conciousness just vanishing, I could not imagine there being death and then nothing. The conciousness just cannot cease to exist, it is extremely improbable, and also, it would be a really big downer. I'm pretty sure none of us can imagine what it would be like to cease to exist, many imagine nothing, but if we cease to exist we cannot even imagine, not think, not exist.
It's a pretty big thing to wrap your head around if you get complex with it.

Originally posted by Lomebririon
The conciousness just cannot cease to exist

I totally agree with that. I remember hearing about this on like the History channel or something and they talked about the mind being able to exist without the body because of some thing or other. Yeah, I forget how it goes, but it was just like what you were talking about.

Everything is connected. What is mind without body? What is mind and body without earth?

It is this mindset, that is primarily Greko-Roman and Western that has lead us into this pitfall of comsumer materialism...this mind set is destroying a world that had kept us safe for millions of years.

Why is it good to separate self from that which one is infinitly connected to.

Dialectic materialism is an illusion purported by so-called great thinkers, the deconstructionists, Plato, people who managed to indulge their egos to a dangerously ethnocentric viewpoint that is responsible for many genocidal terrors throughout history. The belief that one is separate from all include fellow man...of course they don't REALLY believe this. They contradict themselves and support the systematic elimination of those 'barbaric' or 'native' or 'heretical' simply to exploit their resources for personal gain.

Read LaChapelle "Sacred Land, Sacred sex" or "Earth Wisdom"

Learn what the eastern societies practiced until we systematically envaded their acient life perserving, earth friendly values.

read native american shamanism

don't buy the Greek methods. the rhetoric is flawed because it is based in imagined ego as opposed to the earth that touches your every molecule, the quark that exists in every thing throughout....

we are all the same
we are only different because we manifest it so

and that is neurotic behavior

Originally posted by will.i.am

\"Philosophical materialism is the outlook which explains that there is only one material world.
...
\"Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.\"

--By Rob Sewell


This is more or less my philosophy but I'd like to believe in a mind without a body. Which would give birth to hope of an after life of some kind. When I look around myself, I notice that I'm surrounded with life and death. Life seems to short, there must still be something else to this.

agree? disagree?

That pretty much sums up what I believe at the moment (Who said you can't change what you believe?).
I have no problem imagining the fact that there is no after-life. Since "I", my conciuosness, is a bunch of electrical signals through neural pathways, then when I die those signals will quickly fade and disappear. I don't see why that should be so hard to accept. I find it alot more improbable that we have a spirit that would continue to live on a higher plane. If that were the case then why do we exist on this plane at all?
However, it would be nice with an after-life but I just don't believe in one.

the afterlife is the reciprocation of energy on earth.
energy NEVER dissapates, it only changes forms.

I think the afterlife looks like the peak of DMT or DXM. The consciousness goes where it will along the paths our imaginations and dreams (the times when smallest small amounts of dmt is released in the brain, and a load right at death, oddly enough) have always followed.

Death is what I see when I meditate for half a day with no thoughts.

Death and life are the same to me now.

I do not fear death. "Dead already, dead again." -Jack Kerouac

Well, when I die the energy that is in me will all change into heat one way or another. Now, if someone can find life in the thermal energy from a dead person then that would be interesting.